If you don't run your own LLM proxy, how do you even know what's going on?

If you don't run your own LLM proxy, how do you know whats going on?

Most people chat with LLMs through a provider's frontend and trust whatever analytics it shows—often just cute mascot images, not real token usage data. The author argues for running your own proxy: one endpoint for multiple providers and models, logs of which key called what model and when, virtual API keys, and infrastructure you control. With a self-hosted proxy, a cache miss during a coding session can be traced in seconds, and switching models or providers doesn't mean rebuilding everything again.